-Caveat Lector-
------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
Hi Everyone:
Below is a sample letter to the parties listed requesting the denying of
Monsanto right to a patent to sterlize heriloom seeds. If this goes through,
farmers and hobby growers would not be able to save seeds because they would
be sterile! This greed can be stopped if enough people write now. This issue
is due for a vote soon!
If you want to help send the letter below, or one of your own composition,
using your name, to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Also, please CC. copies to the list of C.C. copies that are listed at the end
of the letter. It would also help to send this to anyone you know who might
want to help.
Thanks!
Namaste!
Marilyn
The Honorable Dan Glickman
Secretary of Agriculture
200-A Whitten Bldg.
1400 Independence Ave., SW
Washington DC 20250
FROM:
Concerned Citizen, Marilyn Wright, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (put your name
here)
Dear Secretary Glickman,
I am writing to ask that the USDA immediately cease negotiations to license
the Terminator technology to a Monsanto subsidiary (Delta and Pine Land Co.).
I also urge the USDA to abandon its worldwide patent applications on this
immoral and dangerous technology.
The Terminator technology (US patent #5,723,765) is a genetic technology that
renders farm-saved seed sterile. This technology has no agronomic benefit and
should never see the commercial light of day. The Terminator violates
Farmers' Rights and threatens agricultural biodiversity. The Terminator
isn't about improving agriculture, it is about sterilizing seeds, wresting
control of seeds and plant breeding from farmers, and fattening Monsanto's
profits. According to Delta and Pine Land, Monsanto stands to make as much as
US $1.5 billion per year using the Terminator to force farmers to return to
the commercial seed market every year. This is not progress, it is a threat
to global food security and an egregious use of public research money.
As a public agency dedicated to promoting agriculture, USDA should be taking
steps to safeguard the rights of farmers to save seed, not designing
technologies to eliminate those rights. In light of the alarming rate of
consolidation in the seed industry, I urge USDA to launch a public inquiry
into the impacts of seed industry consolidation on farmers and food security.
The Terminator is an anti-farmer, anti-biodiversity technology - paid for by
public money - and in large part aimed, according to USDA and Delta and Pine
Land, at farmers in developing countries. USDA and Monsanto have indicated
in Patent Cooperation Treaty documents that they intend to pursue patents on
the Terminator in at least 87 countries.
National applications are moving forward - or have issued - in Australia,
Brazil, Canada, Japan, South Africa, most European countries, and probably
more jurisdictions.
Scientists warn that, under certain conditions, the trait for seed
sterility will flow, via pollen, from Terminator crops to surrounding plants,
making the seeds of neighboring plants sterile. Given the profound risks to
food security and the environment, especially in the biodiversity-rich South,
the Terminator patent embodies the kind of threat to public morality
described in Article 27(2) of the WTO TRIPs agreement.
The Terminator technology is a dead-end for farmers and a threat to food
security worldwide. It is morally unacceptable, and it must be banned. I
respectfully urge you to stop the Terminator technology and cease
negotiations for its commercial development.
USDA should work for farmers and the people - not Monsanto. Permitting this
abhorable plan would be incredibly inflationary for the citizenry and be a
hardship for many. It is also never wise for man to interfere with God's plan.
When the food is controlled by a conglomerate, if there is a failure in crops,
there wouldn't be enough live seed in the system to avoid world wide
starvation. Please use your head and heart and not sell out to industry and
greed consciousness.
Respectfully,
Marilyn Wright
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